Some LPS Struggles

[CRABDADDY]

Hello all,

I'm having some issues with some of my LPS. A little background on the tank first. My tank is about 3.5 months old. All of the coral has been added gradually over that past 2 months or so. Fish are all doing well. I have a lot of euphilia, which also seems to be doing fairly well. A number of my other LPS are where I'm seeing issues. My Trachy is retracted most days and has recently started keeping it's mouth open. Also my acans are not looking great. The green ones are doing better than the orange ones, but neither are looking good. I recently moved them to the sandbed because I thought they be getting too much light. The orange ones also have spionid worms in them, which I think are bothering them.



I have a dragon soul favia that's losing a lot of color.



This octospawn is the only piece of euphilia that I have that seems to be struggling.

This hammer usually looks ok, but today it's showing a little skeleton.


And some pictures of the rest of my corals. The torch usually looks fine, it's opened up since I started writing this.


I have some zoa's that are growing. Mushrooms seem to be doing well too. Got a Duncan that's open and happy.

That's mostly what I'm seeing. Onto parameters and build info.

Here's the parameters I tested for today/yesterday.



Temp is 77-78. The first thing that caught my eye was the low magnesium. I have a solution I can dose with, but I wanted to get input on what to do before I take any action.

I have a single ai prime lighting the tank. I have an innovative marine powerhead (not sure what model). I have an ato, so no salinity fluctuations.

I feed once a day. I dose phyto and amino acids daily. I'm using chemipure in my overflow. I'm not dosing anything else. I mostly keep up with weekly water changes.

I'm more than happy to answer any questions and provide any info requested. Maybe this isn't as bad as I think, but I'm concerned that some of these corals are going to slowly die if I don't do something. Any help is appreciated. Thank you for reading.

 

[EuphylliaAddict]

Get your salinity to 1.026 and keep it there for a month and see if that helps.

 

[Typhon]

I would recommend lowering your Alk. My LPS tend to do better at 8 and my SPS like 8.0-8.5, but 9.5 is little high. Also, your Mg is low (should be around 1300), Salinity is little low IMO, Nitrate are high (around 5 is good) and Phospate is high too.

 

[Typhon]

I keep my Phospates around 0.05

 

[Uncle99]

Those numbers look fine but the E group, hammers, torches and frogspawn hate low MG.
I run MG at 1400-1450ppm.

 

[CRABDADDY]

I would recommend lowering your Alk. My LPS tend to do better at 8 and my SPS like 8.0-8.5, but 9.5 is little high. Also, your Mg is low (should be around 1300), Salinity is little low IMO, Nitrate are high (around 5 is good) and Phospate is high too.

My main concern here is changing too many things at once. The alk may be on the high end, but it is stable there. Magnesium is something I think I definitely need to increase.

Maybe what I need to do is a large water change. Any input on that? I'm at a bit of a loss here and I feel like if I start tinkering with individual parameters I'm just going to make things worse.

 

[CRABDADDY]

Quick update. I retested Magnesium because I couldn't imagine how it would have gotten that low. It's actually at 1260. I made a testing error on my initial test this morning. Still probably on the lower side, but not quite as bad.

 

[CanuckReefer]

My main concern here is changing too many things at once. The alk may be on the high end, but it is stable there. Magnesium is something I think I definitely need to increase.

Maybe what I need to do is a large water change. Any input on that? I'm at a bit of a loss here and I feel like if I start tinkering with individual parameters I'm just going to make things worse.

I wouldn't go too crazy on a change. Maybe 25% and see... Agree with others Mag is low what salt are you utilizing? Some are lower mag than others...

 

[CanuckReefer]

Quick update. I retested Magnesium because I couldn't imagine how it would have gotten that low. It's actually at 1260. I made a testing error on my initial test this morning. Still probably on the lower side, but not quite as bad.

Ah this is much better number, a bit low, but nothing crazy. Maybe still a bit of water change. Also, what is tank size with the one AI Prime?

 

[CRABDADDY]

I'm using red sea coral pro salt.

Coral Pro Salt | Premium grade, high Alkalinity - Red Sea

Coral Pro reef salt enhances coral growth up to 4 times their natural rate. Its alkalinity of 12 dKH makes it ideal for mixed reefs.

www.redseafish.com

None of my parameters are as high as the salt is supposed to mix at. I think when I first filled the tank I must have mixed it at a lower salinity than I should have. Therefore the lower parameters than advertised.

The tank is a AIO IM nuvo 40. The display is about 30g.

 

[CRABDADDY]

Full tank shot. Should have included that in my initial post!

 

[CanuckReefer]

I'm using red sea coral pro salt.

Coral Pro Salt | Premium grade, high Alkalinity - Red Sea

Coral Pro reef salt enhances coral growth up to 4 times their natural rate. Its alkalinity of 12 dKH makes it ideal for mixed reefs.

www.redseafish.com

None of my parameters are as high as the salt is supposed to mix at. I think when I first filled the tank I must have mixed it at a lower salinity than I should have. Therefore the lower parameters than advertised.

The tank is a AIO IM nuvo 40. The display is about 30g.

Lighting should be just enough then IMO , could be that mix then as you mention. Phos and Nitrate a bit high. Perhaps the small change will bring things a little more in line.

 

[CRABDADDY]

Here's my lighting schedule. Maybe this is part of the issue? I just tried to mimic a schedule I found online.

 

[Tcook]

This is still a brand new tank so you need to follow parameters closely to maintain stability. Get your SG up to 1.026. I would maybe slide the trachy (wellso) to the left under that ledge. I've had brains in worse shape come back. Give it time with stable numbers.

 

[CRABDADDY]

This is still a brand new tank so you need to follow parameters closely to maintain stability. Get your SG up to 1.026. I would maybe slide the trachy (wellso) to the left under that ledge. I've had brains in worse shape come back. Give it time with stable numbers.

Alright. I'm planning on doing a 25% water change or so tomorrow. Should I just do that large of a water change weekly at a higher salinity to gradually increase the salinity of the tank? My other parameters will increase if I do this. Usually when I water change my alk increases by 0.3-0.4 dKh because the parameters of the salt mix are higher than that of my tank. And that's at a 10% water change. I'm concerned that I'll shoot my alk up, causing another issue.

 

[Uncle99]

Alright. I'm planning on doing a 25% water change or so tomorrow. Should I just do that large of a water change weekly at a higher salinity to gradually increase the salinity of the tank? My other parameters will increase if I do this. Usually when I water change my alk increases by 0.3-0.4 dKh because the parameters of the salt mix are higher than that of my tank. And that's at a 10% water change. I'm concerned that I'll shoot my alk up, causing another issue.

I would just let it increase by not adding any evaporation water till you get to 1.026, then do the water change with 1.026 back up to ATO or manual water level.

 

[CRABDADDY]

Ok, that's a good idea. That way my alk won't swing as it would if I just did a higher salinity water change. I think I might have to do it in multiple runs so my pump doesn't run dry. I'm not sure how much water needs to evaporate off to get to 1.026 from 1.024. is that too big of a swing for one day? I could do it over a few days if that would be better.

 

[Tcook]

You could put 1.026 into your ato reservoir until you get there.

 

[CRABDADDY]

You could put 1.026 into your ato reservoir until you get there.

Ok, I'll probably do that. I imagine I'll need to watch it pretty closely. I feel like there's potential for disaster if I let it go too long. I'm mixing up some saltwater now.

 

[Uncle99]

Ok, that's a good idea. That way my alk won't swing as it would if I just did a higher salinity water change. I think I might have to do it in multiple runs so my pump doesn't run dry. I'm not sure how much water needs to evaporate off to get to 1.026 from 1.024. is that too big of a swing for one day? I could do it over a few days if that would be better.

When increasing salinity, always go real slow, no more than 0.002 per day, 0.001 better, we always want any change being done real slow. It’s fish that don’t like big changes in salinity, but in your case, yiyr

No problem at all to add 1.026 water to keep levels in check.

I mixed higher salinity water and added it directly to a high flow area if I need to tweak my salinity by 0.001 or 0.002.

I doubt that increase will make much difference in Alk.